Tonight around 6:30, I headed through East Ballard towards Goodwill with my arms overflowing with stuff to donate. It’s true: Stuff breeds. Really. And yes, that’s “Stuff” with a capital S. I’ve been working for two years to weed out what no longer fits in my life or with me (stuff, habits, etc.) and bring in only that which enriches (ditto). It’s been an interesting journey especially given that it has been changing me in the process – as has everything else I’ve been through in the last two years …
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By At large in BallardIt was Kim at The Scoop who first showed me the bumper sticker propped against the cash register. “He’s a genius,” she said. “You need to talk to him.”
Kim knows all. Within a day or so she got me contact information written on the official store notepaper – a white doughnut bag …
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As the news finally broke that I had dreading and expecting, that the man trapped along with his daughter during last week’s horrific accident, had died of his injuries the sky seemed know to go black over Ballard and Seattle.
Reading about his life on the web site of his workplace Sub Pop Records made me think of a poem that tides me through life and death, Raymond Carver’s Late Fragment

Late Fragment
And did you get
what you wanted from this life, even so?
I did …

By At large in BallardI didn’t know that I believed in a God but having just been at the scene of the accident on 15th Avenue NW I am praying to anyone who listen that the driver of the car that was hit from behind will survive. I wish that I had not seen what I had seen. Even though I wrote a book about Maria Federici’s accident and the heroic efforts of Medic One it didn’t seem real to me until tonight …
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OK I’ve been working on a catch-up post for days now since I’ve been absent so long but before I get to finish that, I just saw this article in the Ballard News Tribune. It turns out that the City of Seattle is offering free trees to Ballard residents to help increase the canopy cover, from the current amount of 23% to their goal of 30%, which I think is fantastic. As a walker, I tend to choose certain routes over others so as not to swelter on the non-tree-lined cement sidewalks (think large parts …
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